Randy Gaddo and Robert MacFarlane seem to present some obvious lessons learned from the bombing in Lebanon that occurred 25 years ago today in op-eds in the NY Times. While they present compelling stories, they both come to some misleading conclusions – that we should have stayed in Lebanon to "fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here".
Follow me below the fold to find out why they’re wrong.
Please indulge a bit of explanation before we get to the analysis. Two days before the war in Lebanon in 2006, I was a passing through Southern Lebanon on my way to visit an old castle, and an old prison camp at al Khiam. I had read about the Khiam prison camp in Robert Fisk’s Pity the Nation. Stop me if this sounds familiar. During the 1980s, the occupying power (Israel) had rounded up some "terrorists" (southern Lebanese) and kept them in a prison in Khiam without access to human rights groups, lawyers, or any way to legally challenge their imprisonment. Many were tortured, including the guy running the gift shop, who took the time to show me some of the instruments he was tortured with, including handcuffs that said "made in USA".
Ali, my taxi driver, was covered in scars. He limped noticeably and could not close his right hand to make a fist because of the taught scar tissue on his knuckles. Much of his skin looked like it had been burned. When I got in his car with my brother and some Canadian friends, he said forthrightly he didn’t like America. Why? I asked. After some negotiations with my limited Arabic vocabulary, he said it was because of the injuries he received. It was 1996 and Israel was performing its "Grapes of Wrath" bombing in South Lebanon. During the campaign the Israelis bombed a car that was about 20 feet from him. The explosion sent him flying. Ali needed multiple surgeries and around a year in the hospital. The bombs Israel dropped? Made in the USA. That, he said, is why I don’t like America.
Two days later, I could understand. I wasn’t too happy being stuck in Lebanon during the 2006 war. It definitely conjured up mixed emotions for me being bombed by a country that was supposedly an ally and having the US stand silently as civilian casualties mounted on both sides. I was so affected that when I got back that my mom thought I had a touch of Stockholm syndrome. (Thank you to all the taxpayers who helped fund the US evacuation. No doubt, I owe you all a huge debt of gratitude.)
My mom may have been right, but being on the wrong side of a bombing campaign does help you see things from the other side, and allowed me to understand some perspectives that a lot of Americans, and in this case Gaddo and MacFarlane seem oblivious to, or perhaps willfully disregard. Namely, that there is a difference between terrorists that happen to be Muslim, and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists.
I’ve spent some time in Lebanon while in medical school doing clinical rotations and some public health research. I’m by no means an expert, and definitely not a military strategist, but it seems that in the US we have the tendency to lump terrorist groups together which creates false choices like the decision to invade Iraq.
Take for example the IRA. The Irish Republican Army ran a terrorist battle in Great Britain, fighting for their "liberation" from what they saw to be an illegitimate occupying power in Northern Ireland. For that reason, they took their battle to the occupying power and terrorized them where they slept. London still lives with the memories of those days. You cannot find trashcans in bus or train stations because they were removed to stop people from dropping package bombs in them. Almost anywhere you go you will be watched on security cameras.
I don’t want to get into a debate about the huge differences between the IRA and Hezbollah, but the point is that we shouldn’t lump terrorist groups together simply because they commit terrorist acts. We need to understand their motives and raison d’etre for that will reveal different strategies for dealing with them, undermining them and trying to take the steam out of their support.
The point is the IRA had clear, rational goals, even if they used irrational, violent and despicable methods to achieve them. If you understand Hezbollah’s history and origins, you can see that their goals are also rational, but they also use irrational, violent and despicable methods in their attempt to achieve them. This differs from Al Qaeda and some other Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups, which have irrational goals (the destruction of "the West") and use irrational, violent and despicable methods to achieve them. For groups with irrational goals, we may need to follow the "fight them over there so we don’t fight them here" mantra. But for those with rational goals, addressing and negotiating a compromise between our goals has a better chance of seeing results than trying to beat them into oblivion. Even if you eliminate the group, if you don't eliminate their raison d'etre, they will spring up again
Therefore, linking the fight against fundamentalist Islamic terrorism to the bombing in Lebanon is a red herring and misunderstands the origins and motives of Hezbollah. Just like all Muslims are not terrorists, not all terrorists are Islamic fundamentalists seeking death to America. We – as in we, the public, not just the CIA or military strategists – need to know the difference in order to maintain any modicum of moral standing in the world, and in the middle east. Think about it, there are Muslim groups in the middle east that we would probably like to support because we would perceive their motives to be legitimate, such as those trying to undermine totalitarian regimes and bring democracy (yes, they exist). If we lump all Muslim groups that use terrorist means into one broad category of "MUSLIM TERRORIST" then, unsurprisingly, the rest of the world will perceive us as attacking Muslims in a prejudicious manner.
Gaddo and MacFarlane talk about how US soldiers were attacked by ‘terrorists’ in Lebanon in 1983. Yet some groups saw us as occupiers, particularly Hezbollah, which calls itself the "Islamic Resistance in Lebanon". Hezbollah was born with the sole purpose of liberating Lebanon from occupying forces, particularly Israel. Thus when the US entered Lebanon and contained its soldiers in an old Israeli barracks, Hezbollah saw yet another occupying country taking advantage of Lebanon’s weakness. It was too easy for us to fall into the ‘occupier’ box even though we had no intention of ever staying. Instead, the bombing launched the relatively newly-formed Hezbollah into the limelight. What’s the saying? ‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’?
Hezbollah commits terrorist acts. This does not make them "Islamic terrorists" in the same sense as al Qaeda just because Hezbollah members are almost always Muslim. Hezbollah is not hell-bent on the destruction of "the West". They see Lebanon as their number one priority, which makes it easy to predict what would incur Hezbollah’s wrath. They attack when they perceive Lebanon (and by extension, themselves) to be threatened. Don’t threaten the stability or sovereignty of Lebanon, and you will not get attacked by Hezbollah. Don’t try to take away Lebanon’s ability to defend itself (read, don’t try to take away our weapons) and Hezbollah will not likely attack you.
This does not excuse Hezbollah and please do not read this as a defense of the IRA’s or Hezbollah’s actions. Hezbollah's bombings in 1983 (and later) were deplorable. But lumping Hezbollah's terrorists in with radical fundamentalist islamic terrorists implies that we should go back and invade Lebanon now to finish the job.
Moreover, the biggest victims have been those Hezbollah claims to protect. The South Lebanese have legitimate grievances after being run over by multiple armies and having civilian casualties mount from the actions of multitudes of ‘liberators’ and ‘protectors’. But Hezbollah’s violent methods are not the way to achieve a better life for the people that live there. The group is the only militia that has kept its arms after the Lebanese civil war ended with the Ta’if agreement . While Hezbollah claims their arms are necessary to protect Lebanon from Israel (using the 1996 and 2006 Israeli bombing campaigns as excuses), their arms do more to destabilize the region than protect the Lebanese.
Gaddo and MacFarlane may be right about one point. If we are going to go in, we need to stay until the job is done. Sectarian divisions have been hardened through generations, particularly in Lebanon. This means that solutions will likely take a long, long time and change will not come quickly or easily. But my personal opinion is that, with our democratic governments that are liable to change every 4 years, it will be difficult, if not impossible to maintain the kind of presence necessary – through thick and thin – that would be required to help bring lasting change. And when I say "presence" I am more partial to humanitarian presences than military ones. As Dame Stella Rimington, the UK former head of MI-5, said recently, even saying the term "war on terror" implies that military actions will be the main means by which we should push against Islamic fundamentalist terrorists bent on the destruction of the West when " a combination of policing, intelligence gathering and diplomacy was far more likely to succeed than force of arms."
The July War in 2006 sealed this perspective for me. While Hezbollah foolishly brought Israeli wrath to bear on the country, the US stood silent as Israel bombed all of Lebanon. The US's reason seemed to be that if Israel could bombard Hezbollah into oblivion, great! The problem was the reality on the ground. As the civilian casualties mounted, and Hezbollah continued firing its rockets, even the most anti-Hezbollah Lebanese, people who cursed Hezbollah for starting the war, started to see Israel as the bad guys, and the US as just as bad for allowing the bombing to continue. The war of public perception had a clear winner – Hezbollah and its leader Hasan Nasrallah, who remains one of the most influential figureheads in the middle east today, launched into the regional spotlight because of the war. We talk about winning Arab hearts and minds, but US actions (or lack thereof) during that war quickly lost millions. It will take years (or perhaps a new administration?) to start winning them back.